Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de LEnclos, the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventee | Page 8

cement the
rope of sand he had spun. Unable to subject the master minds among
the nobility to its domination, ecclesiasticism had succeeded in
destroying them by augmenting royal prerogatives which it could
control with less difficulty. Public maxims of government, connected
as they were with private morals, had debauched the nation, and
plunged it into a depth of degradation out of which Richelieu and his
whole entourage of clerical reformers could not extricate a single
individual. It was a riot of theological morality.
The whole body of the French nobility and the middle class of citizens

were reduced to a servile attendance on the court, as the only means of
advancement and reward. Every species of industry and merit in these
classes was sedulously discouraged; and the motive of honorable
competition for honorable things, being withdrawn, no pursuit or
occupation was left them but the frivolous duties, or the degrading
pleasures of the palace.
Next to the king, the women naturally became the first objects of their
effeminate devotion; and it is difficult to say which were soonest
corrupted by courtiers consummate in the arts of adulation, and
unwearied in their exercise. The sovereign rapidly degenerated into an
accomplished despot, and the women into intriguers and coquettes.
Richelieu had indeed succeeded in subjecting the State to the rule of the
Church, but Ninon was destined to play an important part in modifying
the evils which afflicted society, and at least elevate its tone. From the
methods she employed to effect this change, it may be suspected that
the remedy was equivalent to the Hanemannic maxim: "Similia
similbus curantur," a strange application of a curative agent in a case of
moral decrepitude, however valuable and effective it may be in
physical ailments.
The world of the twentieth century, bound up as it is in material
progress, refuses to limit its objects and aims to the problematic
enjoyment of the pleasures of Paradise in the great hereafter, or of
suffering with stoicism the pains and misfortunes of this earth as a
means of avoiding the problematic pains of Hell. Future rewards and
punishments are no longer incentives to virtue or right living. The only
drag upon human acts of every kind is now that great political maxim,
the non-observance of which has often deluged the earth with blood;
"Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas," which is to say: So use thine own
as not to injure thy neighbor. It is a conventional principle, one of
contract in reality, but it has become a great doctrine of equity and
justice, and it is inculcated by our educational systems to the exclusion
of the purely religious idea, and the elimination of religious dogma,
which tends to oppressive restraints, is carefully fostered.
There is another reason why men's minds are impelled away from the

purely sentimental moral doctrines insisted upon by sectarianism,
which is ecclesiasticism run riot, and the higher the education the
deeper we delve into the secret motives of that class of mankind, the
deceptive outward appearances of which dominate the pages of history,
which is, that the greatest and most glorious systems of government,
the wisest and most powerful of rulers, the greatest and most liberal
statesmen, heroes, and conspicuous conquerors, originated in violations
of the Decalogue, and those nations and kingdoms which have been
founded upon strictly ecclesiastical ideas, have all sunk beneath the
shifting sands of time, or have become so degenerate as to be bywords
and objects of derision.
From the same viewpoint, a strange phenomenon is observable in the
world of literature, arts, and sciences. The brightest, greatest geniuses,
whose works are pointed to with admiration; studied as models and
standards, made the basis of youthful education, imitated, and even
wept over by the sentimental, were, in their private lives, persons of the
most depraved morals. Why this should be the case, it is impossible
even to conjecture, the fact only remaining that it is so. Perhaps there
are so many different standards of morality, that humanity, weary of the
eternal bickering consequent upon the conflicts entered into for their
enforcement, have made for themselves a new interpretation which
they find less difficult to observe, and find more peace and pleasure in
following.
To take a further step in the same direction, it is curious that in the lives
of the Saints, those who spent their whole earthly existence in
abstinence, works of the severest penance, and mortifications of the
flesh, the tendency of demoniac influence was never in the direction of
Sabbath breaking, profanity, idolatry, robbery, murder and
covetousness, but always exerted itself to the fullest extent of its power
in attacks upon chastity. All other visions were absent in the
hair-shirted, and self-scourgings brought out nothing but sexual
idealities, sensual temptations. The reason for this peculiarity